How a Columbia U student sees the Gaza war protests

Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a PhD student at Columbia U, wrote a long essay, arguing that the protests against the Gaza war are being badly distorted and described as acts of antisemitism, which he claims is untrue:

I Am a Jewish Student at Columbia. Don’t Believe What You’re Being 

Told About ‘Campus Antisemitism’

Smears from the press and pro-Israel influencers are a dangerous distraction from real threats to our safety

“Reprehensible and dangerous.” “Terrorist sympathizers.” “It’s not 1938 Berlin. It’s 2024, Columbia University, NYC.”

The White House, Congressional Republicans, and cable news talking heads would have you believe that the Columbia University campus has devolved into a hotbed of antisemitic violence – but the reality on the ground is very different. As a Jewish student at Columbia, it depresses me that I have to correct the record and explain what the real risk to our safety looks like. I still can't quite believe how the events on campus over the past few days have been so cynically and hysterically misrepresented by the media and by our elected representatives.

Last week, the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition, representing more than 100 student organizations, including Jewish groups, organized the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, a peaceful campus protest in solidarity with Palestine. CUAD was reactivated after the university suspended Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace in the fall. On Wednesday morning, hundreds of students camped out on Columbia’s South Lawn. They vowed to stay put until the university divests from companies that profit from their ties to Israel. Protesters prayed, chanted, ate pizza, and condemned the university’s complicity in Israel’s attacks on Gaza. Though counter-protesters waved Israeli flags near the encampment, the campus remained largely calm from my vantage point.

Columbia responded by imposing a miniature police state. Just over a day after the encampment was formed, university President Minouche Shafik asked and authorized the New York Police Department to clear the lawn and load 108 students – including a number of Jewish students – onto Department of Corrections buses to be held at NYPD headquarters at 1 Police Plaza. One Jewish student told me that she and her fellow protesters were restrained in zip-tie handcuffs for eight hours and held in cells where they shared a toilet without privacy. The NYPD chief of patrol John Chell later told the Columbia Spectator that “the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner.”

Smears from the press and pro-Israel influencers, who have levied charges of antisemitism and violence against Jewish students, are a dangerous distraction from real threats to our safety. I saw politicians compare student organizers to neo-Nazis and call for a National Guard deployment, apparently ignorant of the lives lost at Kent State and in Charlottesville, and with very little pushback from national media. This is a repulsive form of self-aggrandizement that I can only assume is intended to preserve relationships with influential donors. Calls to more heavily police our campus actively endanger Jewish students, and threaten the regular operations of the university far more gravely than peaceful protests.

It’s true, the fact that CUAD organizers fundamentally reject bigotry and hate has not stopped unrelated actors from exploiting opportunities to shamefully harass Jewish students with grotesque or antisemitic statements. I condemn antisemitism – which should seem obvious since I have experienced it many times myself. (This likely won’t keep controversial Columbia Business School professor Shai Davidai from calling me a kapo.) But the often off-campus actions of a few unaffiliated individuals simply do not characterize this disciplined student campaign. The efforts to connect these offensive but relatively isolated incidents to the broader pro-Palestinian protest movement mirror a wider strategy to delegitimize all criticism of Israel.

As this national discourse over “campus antisemitism” reached a boiling point over the weekend, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment saw CUAD organizers lead joint Muslim and Jewish prayer sessions and honor each other’s dead. This is wholesome, human stuff – it doesn’t make for sensationalist headlines about Jew-hating Ivy Leaguers.

.... a Passover Seder service was held at the encampment. Would an antisemitic student movement welcome Jews in this way? I think not.
 

I am wary of a hysterical campus discourse – gleefully amplified by many of the same charlatans who have turned “DEI” into a slur – that draws attention away from the ongoing slaughter in the Gaza Strip and settler violence in the occupied West Bank. We should be focusing on the material reality of war: the munitions our government is sending to Israel, which kill Palestinians by the thousands, and the Americans participating in the violence. Forget the fringe folks and outside agitators: the CUAD organizers behind the campus protests have rightfully insisted on divestment as their most important demand of the Columbia administration, and on sustained attention to the situation in Palestine.

When I posted Thoughts about the pro-Palestine protest at Columbia University two days ago, I got some sharp criticism for not diving deep enough into the sources of information that alleged antisemitism b y the protesters. My big mistake was not wanting to give my email out to a source, Jewish Insider, that required it to read the article. I found out this morning that I was partly mistaken about the email. Anyway, I just blew it off and cited some allegedly antisemitic rhetoric that allegedly came from the protestors. It didn’t come from protesters. It came from outside infiltrators.

It was pointed out to me that the source of one bit of alleged antisemitism by protesters, Chants from protesters of "Go back to Poland", was basically made up. It was a lie. This is what Jewish Insider actually wrote:

After Saturday night’s widespread antisemitic harassment on campus, several Jewish Columbia students said they felt afraid for their safety for the first time.

“[Saturday night] was an absolute breaking point and the first time people were truly afraid,” Eliana Goldin, a third-year political science major, told Jewish Insider. “My friends and I saw [non-Columbia students] sneak onto campus through a gap in the fence and we were verbally harassed, and some of my friends were physically assaulted. Public safety and NYPD did not help us. We were essentially stalked and followed as we tried to leave the escalating situation.”

According to Goldin, the physical assaults included assailants slapping a Jewish student, another pouring water on several students and others attempting to grab Israeli flags and run away with them.

“They yelled at us to go back to Poland, that we have no culture and chanted, ‘Strike strike Tel Aviv,” Goldin recalled. “My rabbi’s decision to tell everyone to stay away from campus was the right decision,” she said of Buechler’s statement, “because last night proved that the NYPD isn’t capable of protecting us… the environment here is openly hostile and possibly dangerous.”

Well, there it is. Right out in the open. The antisemitism was not coming from Columbia student protesters. It was coming from thugs, maybe antisemitic (maybe not), who snuck onto campus and harassed Jewish students.

That same Jewish Insider source in my post of two days ago was also cited for most of the rest of the allegedly antisemitic rhetoric. 

One reliable source that was cited, the BBC reported rhetoric "echoing that of terrorist organizations, especially in the wake of the recent massacre against the Jewish people, is despicable." Is that necessarily antisemitic? 

Some people see the phrase or chant, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, as profoundly antisemitic. Others see it as a call for Palestinian liberation and dignity, in view of the lack of freedoms Palestinians have in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. In short, the meaning ultimately depends on the speaker, listener, and context. 

Is it possible that the protesting students are not knowingly antisemitic and protesting what they see as genocide in Gaza and American complicity in it? Is the student who wrote this essay, Mr. Ben-Menachem, a cynical liar? He claims to be a Jew who was present and saw no antisemitism among the protestors. What reason would he have for lying? 

Q: Is Germaine a fool for even trying to figure out what is really going on here? 

Looking back: The origin of COVID; The failure of Ukraine-Russia peace talks

A long AP article reviews the uncertainty about where COVID originated. Not surprisingly, China privately obstructed and blocked investigations into the origin while publicly proclaiming transparency and cooperation. That is just how morally rotted dictatorships operate. The AP article includes these comments:

Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous

The hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has gone dark in China, the victim of political infighting after a series of stalled and thwarted attempts to find the source of the virus that killed millions and paralyzed the world for months.

The Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus from the first weeks of the outbreak, despite statements supporting open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation found. That pattern continues to this day, with labs closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.

As early as Jan. 6, 2020, health officials in Beijing closed the lab of a Chinese scientist who sequenced the virus and barred researchers from working with him.

Scientists warn the willful blindness over coronavirus’ origins leaves the world vulnerable to another outbreak, potentially undermining pandemic treaty talks coordinated by the World Health Organization set to culminate in May.

At the heart of the question is whether the virus jumped from an animal or came from a laboratory accident. A U.S. intelligence analysis says there is insufficient evidence to prove either theory, but the debate has further tainted relations between the U.S. and China.

Unlike in the U.S., there is virtually no public debate in China about whether the virus came from nature or from a lab leak. In fact, there is little public discussion at all about the source of the disease, first detected in the central city of Wuhan.

Crucial initial efforts were hampered by bureaucrats in Wuhan trying to avoid blame who misled the central government; the central government, which muzzled Chinese scientists and subjected visiting WHO officials to stage-managed tours; and the U.N. health agency itself, which may have compromised early opportunities to gather critical information in hopes that by placating China, scientists could gain more access, according to internal materials obtained by AP.  

Secrecy clouds the beginning of the outbreak. Even the date when Chinese authorities first started searching for the origins is unclear. “There was a chance for China to cooperate with WHO and do some animal sampling studies that might have answered the question,” said Tulane University virologist Robert Garry. “The trail to find the source has now gone cold.”

It is not surprising that the Chinese government obstructed and lied. It is deeply disappointing that American scientists kept telling us that they knew the virus came from a natural source, while denying the possibility or plausibility of a lab-leaked virus that was possibly man-made, maybe funded by US tax dollars. 

We will never know the truth. We are thus free to believe what we want based on the incomplete evidence there is. I choose to believe (i) the origin was more likely a lab leak than natural source, maybe man made, (ii) the Chinese government is lying, (iii) the elite American scientists to told us a false story have no credibility, (iv) existing evidence fully supports calling what elite American scientists to told us a false story, and (v) we will never know the truth.

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An article published by Responsible Statecraft discusses a recent analysis of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in 2022. The talks got fairly close to being finalized. According to the RS article, the talks failed to bear fruit largely because (i) changing battlefield conditions convinced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he could win the war militarily, (ii) Western allies’ hesitance to engage diplomatically with Russia and simultaneous ramping up of military support for Ukraine, and (iii) the discovery that Russian forces had committed atrocities in Bucha. RS writes:

The RAND corporation’s Samuel Charap and Johns Hopkins University professor Sergey Radchenko published a detailed timeline and analysis of the talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators just after the Russian invasion in February 2022 that could have brought the war to an end just weeks after it had begun. 

On some of these points, the authors contend that earlier accounts have been overstated. The idea that the U.S. and the UK “forced” Zelensky to back out of peace talks is “baseless,” say Charap and Radchenko, though they acknowledge that “the lack of Western enthusiasm does seem to have dampened his interest in diplomacy.”

On the suggestion that the discovery of war crimes convinced the Ukrainian president to abandon negotiations, the authors note discussions “continued and even intensified in the days and weeks after the discovery of Russia’s war crimes, suggesting that the atrocities at Bucha and Irpin were a secondary factor in Kyiv’s decision-making.”

But taken together, these factors, along with certain details of the agreement that were never finalized, were enough to imperil the negotiations.

Now several years later, it is reasonable to believe that the combination of Zelensky's mistaken belief in a winnable war and Biden's neutral to lukewarm attitude about a peace deal were tragic, catastrophic failures of US and Ukraine leadership. The costs for that gigantic mistake will be very high. The US just passed a bill funding another $60 billion in military aid to the Ukraine after a crippling delay. The Ukraine's position is likely to remain weak until the country can no longer sustain the human and other losses of Russia's ruthless war. At the point of collapse, Ukraine will be forced to surrender under hideous terms. There will be a second 21st century genocide.

The lesson should have been clear early on. Try for peace as hard as possible. Even if talks fail or an agreement is breached, no one can accuse political leadership of at least not trying hard for a peace agreement. 

The damage has been done. It cannot be undone. An end game along the lines of what is now playing out in Gaza seems likely for the Ukrainian people.

The world desperately needs better democracies and better democratic leaders.

Deeper thinking about pro-Palestine protests, rhetoric and actual war

Some have argued that most of the backlash against alleged antisemitism coming out of recent and ongoing pro-Palestine protests is a cynical attempt by some elites to deflect attention from the ongoing slaughter of civilians in Gaza. This 12:23 video is by Palestinian poet and journalist Mohammed El-Kurd. He argues that the allegations of antisemitism are designed to distract from what the Israeli government and military are doing in Gaza. He argues that (1) alleged antisemitism is mostly words, while the killing in Gaza is entirely bullets and bombs, and (2) giving equal weight to allegedly antisemitic words and actual bullets and bombs killing civilians is absurd. From that, he argues that complaining about antisemitism is a cynical propaganda ploy to at least distract attention from the bullets and bombs Gaza war to date, if not to downplay and/or justify it. 

Looking for a debate...........

 ............ NOT just, good, lock him up, and throw away the keys.

Prison time for teen Capitol rioter who pepper-sprayed officers, brandished Confederate flag

What is there to debate, you ask?

WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge on Monday imposed a 30-month prison sentence on a man who brandished a Confederate flag outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and pepper sprayed two Capitol police officers.

Isreal Easterday, who was 19 years old when he participated in the riot, faced a potential sentence of 12 years and seven months per to the Justice Department’s recommendation. 

Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg acknowledged the severity of Easterday’s actions and the serious injuries the two officers he sprayed suffered, but imposed a sentence five times lower than the government’s recommendation.

“The fact that you were very young and may not have fully understood what you were a part of” played a role in the Barack Obama appointee's decision, Boasberg said.

The now-23-year-old Easterday, who grew up in an Amish family in rural Kentucky and was homeschooled by his mother until he was 14, apologized for pepper-spraying the officers and said it was the “stupidest mistake” of his entire life. 

https://www.courthousenews.com/prison-time-for-teen-capitol-rioter-who-pepper-sprayed-officers-brandished-confederate-flag/

On other debate forums, LIBERALS wanted this young person sentenced longer and made comments like "good riddance to bad trash."

Being a liberal Snowflake myself, I am all about 2nd chances, especially for someone this young. Throw away the keys and you throw away his life and he will likely come out of jail a bitter person and more violent.

Check the incarceration rate for the U.S. AND then check the recidivism rate for the U.S. We are doing something wrong. 

BUT Snowflake, he pepper sprayed police officers and he is one of THOSE Trump supporters, he deserves no mercy.

SO, debate whether the judge made the right judgement or whether the judge was too lenient and this person who was 19 at the time of the offense deserves 12 years in prison. 

Rethinking the New York election fraud case

Based on opening arguments, a NYT opinion by a law professor got me to reassess the strength of the ongoing trial:

I Thought the Bragg Case Against Trump Was a Legal Embarrassment. 

Now I Think It’s a Historic Mistake.

After listening to Monday’s opening statement by prosecutors, I still think the Manhattan D.A. has made a historic mistake. Their vague allegation about “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” has me more concerned than ever about their unprecedented use of state law and their persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid theory of fraud.

A year ago, I wondered how entirely internal business records (the daily ledger, pay stubs and invoices) could be the basis of any fraud if they are not shared with anyone outside the business. I suggested that the real fraud was Mr. Trump’s filing an (allegedly) false report to the Federal Election Commission, and only federal prosecutors had jurisdiction over that filing.

A recent conversation with Jeffrey Cohen, a friend, Boston College law professor and former prosecutor, made me think that the case could turn out to be more legitimate than I had originally thought. The reason has to do with those allegedly falsified business records: Most of them were entered in early 2017, generally before Mr. Trump filed his Federal Election Commission report that summer. Mr. Trump may have foreseen an investigation into his campaign, leading to its financial records. Mr. Trump may have falsely recorded these internal records before the F.E.C. filing as consciously part of the same fraud: to create a consistent paper trail and to hide intent to violate federal election laws, or defraud the F.E.C.

In short: It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.

Looking at the case in this way might address concerns about state jurisdiction. In this scenario, Mr. Trump arguably intended to deceive state investigators, too. State investigators could find these inconsistencies and alert federal agencies. Prosecutors could argue that New York State agencies have an interest in detecting conspiracies to defraud federal entities; they might also have a plausible answer to significant questions about whether New York State has jurisdiction or whether this stretch of a state business filing law is pre-empted by federal law.

However, this explanation is a novel interpretation with many significant legal problems. And none of the Manhattan D.A.’s filings or today’s opening statement even hint at this approach.

Instead of a theory of defrauding state regulators, Mr. Bragg has adopted a weak theory of “election interference,” and Justice Juan Merchan described the case, in his summary of it during jury selection, as an allegation of falsifying business records “to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 election.”

As a reality check, it is legal for a candidate to pay for a nondisclosure agreement. Hush money is unseemly, but it is legal. The election law scholar Richard Hasen rightly observed, “Calling it election interference actually cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases.”  

In Monday’s opening argument, the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo still evaded specifics about what was illegal about influencing an election, but then he claimed, “It was election fraud, pure and simple.” None of the relevant state or federal statutes refer to filing violations as fraud. Calling it “election fraud” is a legal and strategic mistake, exaggerating the case and setting up the jury with high expectations that the prosecutors cannot meet.

The most accurate description of this criminal case is a federal campaign finance filing violation. Without a federal violation (which the state election statute is tethered to), Mr. Bragg cannot upgrade the misdemeanor counts into felonies. Moreover, it is unclear how this case would even fulfill the misdemeanor requirement of “intent to defraud” without the federal crime.

Viewed through that analysis, the case now feels to be significantly less solid to me. What surprised me is that paying hush money like DJT did is legal. Lying to the FEC about it (the cover up) might be a federal law violation, but this analysis makes the state case look fairly weak. That casts the prosecution in a different light for me.

What baffles me is why DJT keeps lying about not making a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels when it was legal. That makes no sense. Maybe it can be explained by DJT's deranged ego and shameless contempt for inconvenient facts and truths.

As time passes and more little bits like this pop up, a troubling picture develops of deep flaws in the rule of law. Why on Earth would it be legal for a candidate to pay hush money to hide a sex scandal with intent to deceive the voters? That strikes directly into the heart of democracy and the public trust needed to make it function. People like Trump really are above the law because they can afford it.

And why isn't there a federal prosecution for DJT's lies to the FEC about the hush money payment? Is Merrick Garland really that incompetent, and/or is the federal law inadequate to the task of fending off demagogues making a run at kleptocratic dictatorship by not proscribing hush money payments to hookers before elections? What the hell else is the law Swiss cheese about? What else can demagogic kleptocrats running for office do that most normal people would think should be illegal, e.g., shoot someone in broad daylight for the sheer fun of it?

Thoughts about the pro-Palestine protest at Columbia University

Various sources are reporting various things about the recent pro-Palestine protest at Columbia University. Some sources say it was antisemitic and others say it wasn't. Some say the protesters were peaceful and some say otherwise. Once again, the poison and contradictory narratives that attaches to the endless Israel-Palestine hate & misery story is gushing forth. I did some searching and it seems that the protestors were peaceful, but critical of Israel's brutal policy toward Gaza. How prominent the alleged acts of antisemitism were isn't clear to me. Also not clear to me is what is the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of Israeli war policy.

Some Q&A from me and Perplexity:

Q: Was the pro-Palestine protest at Columbia University antisemitic?

A: Based on the search results, the protests at Columbia University appear to have involved both legitimate criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza as well as some incidents of alleged antisemitism:

• The protests were led by student groups like Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), Students for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish Voice for Peace, who were advocating for the university to divest from corporations profiting from Israel's conflict in Gaza 3. Their demands also included a ceasefire in Gaza and increased financial transparency around the university's investments 1.

• However, some Jewish students have accused the protesters of using antisemitic language and engaging in behavior that has made them feel unsafe on campus 1 2 4. Footage emerged of pro-Palestinian activists using derogatory language towards Jewish students 1. The university's president condemned the "antisemitic language" and "intimidating and harassing behavior" occurring on campus 1.

• President Biden also condemned the "antisemitic protests" at Columbia, stating that "silence is complicity" and that this "egregious antisemitism is unacceptable" 2. Other senior Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Josh Gottheimer have also criticized the protests and called for action against harassment 2.

So in summary, while the core of the protests appears to be legitimate criticism of Israel's actions, there have been credible allegations of antisemitic incidents and behavior that have made Jewish students feel unsafe1 2 4. The university leadership and political figures have condemned these antisemitic elements of the protests 1 2.

Biden reacted strongly, maybe out of proportionality with with the seriousness of what he alleged.

Q: Did Biden condemn the Columbia U protest as antisemitic?

A: Yes, Biden condemned the protests at Columbia University as antisemitic. According to the search results:

"'I unequivocally condemn the antisemitic protests,' Biden declared to reporters as he returned from an Earth Day speech. 'I have established a program to address this issue.'" 2 3

Biden specifically stated that the "blatant antisemitism" seen in the protests at Columbia is "reprehensible and dangerous—and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country." 1 4 The White House also issued a statement condemning "calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community" as "blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous." 1 4

So in clear and unequivocal terms, Biden condemned the Columbia protests as antisemitic and said he has established a program to address this issue. 2 3 5 

Some other politicians also condemned the protest as antisemitic.

Q: What were the specific statements that were considered antisemitic

A: According to the search results, the following specific statements and actions were condemned as antisemitic at the Columbia University protests:

• Chants from protesters of "Go back to Poland" 2

• Signs with the Hamas symbol and the words "I'm with them" 2

• Chants calling for Hamas attacks on Tel Aviv 2

• Protesters attempting to burn an Israel flag 2

• Calls for "violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community"1 2

• Rhetoric "echoing that of terrorist organizations, especially in the wake of the recent massacre against the Jewish people"1

• Harassment, threats, and intimidation against Jewish students on campus 2 4 

The White House, New York Mayor, and several members of Congress condemned these specific antisemitic statements and actions as "blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous"1 2. They called for the university to take action to ensure the safety and security of Jewish students on campus.1 2 3 4

Most of that feels clearly antisemitic to me. 

At this point, maybe the Israel-Palestine issue could influence the US election, maybe enough to tip it to Trump. I don't know what to think of all of this. If the US had forced a peace plan decades ago, I doubt all of this would be happening today. But, that's in the past. For better or worse, we have live with the consequences of our past actions and inactions.

Outside agitators complicated the situation